Lawn thread.

[TigerRaptor]

Done with dealing with perennial ryegrass and fine fescue during the summer months when the heat and drought are at their worst. Watching the grass go into dormancy makes the front yard look rather ugly. Even keeping the grass watered constantly gets costly.



So come this fall after dethatching the lawn, I may even aerate in spring; I’m switching over to tttf (turf type tall fescue) with a 10% mix of Kentucky bluegrass. I’ve been experimenting with it for a couple of years now, even mixing in other grass types. The tall fescue always held out the best in hot and humid conditions.



For the price, Sun Joe puts out a really good unit. Not sure why it comes with a bag with the amount of dead grass it pulls up, seems kind pointless! Unless someone wants to change the bag every one to two passes.

Now I like mulching most of the year and bagging once in a while. My Remington RM210 lawn mower, which I bought back in 2019 is kind of crappy. It always struggled with thick grass, even the side discharge. So in May, I upgraded to two new gas mowers. The Toro Super Recycler and the Honda HRX 217. I wasn't planning on buying two lawn mowers, but couldn’t decide which one I wanted. So I was like, screw it, buying both. They're really awesome machines living up to the hype. Both made easy work where the Remington struggled. The Honda is just a little better at mulching over the Toro with my grass type.

Edit: Upgraded to a stronger Toro Super Recycler 190cc. This monster keeps up with the Honda.

[Krom]

Last year I replaced all of my gas operated lawn tools with "Ego" brand battery operated ones, I now do not have a single gas operated tool. Even the chainsaw is electric and astonishingly close to the power output of the Husqvarna I had before. One of the best parts is they all weigh about half as much as the gas powered units they replaced, and in the case of the leaf blower are nearly double as powerful on top of it. We even have their two stage electric snowblower and I question why it even has a "turbo" throttle position because "eco" mode is already more powerful than our old 5 HP gas one at full throttle. Turbo mode really can throw a 50' arc of snow if you can feed it in fast enough, and again it is roughly half the weight of the old gas one so it is quite a bit less effort to steer and operate. And aside from the leaf blower (for obvious reasons) they are all quiet enough to use without hearing protection.

[Tunnelcat]

I'm waiting for Makita to come out with their 40V battery powered mower. I'm still using my 32 year old Honda gas mower until that happens.

[TigerRaptor]

Not ready to switch everything over to battery power. But for most of the yard tools, everything else is going Ego. Their quality is top-notch and hard to beat in my opinion.

I almost bought the Ego single stage snow blower last year, but I held off after hearing something. They released a new steel auger this early in the year. That's the one I'm going with later on. For everything heavier, there's that two stage black behemoth in the corner.



Damn Tunnelcat! 39 years is impressive, even for a Honda. It just proves the old motors were built like tanks back in the day.

[Krom]

Our ego mower came with a 56v/10Ah battery (560 Wh), basically out of all the electric yard tool brands ego has the largest batteries often more than twice as large. It is big enough that it mowed our yard and three other neighbors yards in one charge and still had a solid 20-30% left after roughly 50 minutes of mowing. All together we have about 1.5 kWh worth of ego batteries.

The only thing that really bothers me about the electric yard tool industry is that they rate all their batteries in amp hours which is deceptive marketing when the voltage is not standard. (A 40v/6Ah battery is smaller than a 56v/5 Ah battery for instance.) Watt hours would be so much better for telling you the actual battery capacity that would be standard across all batteries, but at least it is easy to figure out by multiplying the voltage by the amp hours.

[TigerRaptor]

Have you had any problems buying extra Ego batteries? None of the big box stores like Lowe’s and even Ace Hardware can't get them in my area. Same thing goes for mom-and-pop hardware shops. I had to buy it off Amazon.

[dissent]

Have you had any problems buying extra Ego batteries? None of the big box stores like Lowe’s and even Ace Hardware can't get them in my area. Same thing goes for mom-and-pop hardware shops. I had to buy it off Amazon.

yes. I did manage to find some from time to time at local hardware stores, but when I opened the box when I got home I found that the battery inside was invariably a much lower power version - apparently people were buying the higher power OEM batteries and then returning for refund but putting a different, less expensive EGO battery in the box. Seems the hardware stores didn't bother checking and just put them back out for sale.

Somewhat frustrating.

Happy with last year's performance of the EGO snow blower. Gas mower is still working fine so haven't pulled the trigger yet on that. Do need to sharpen or replace the blade though.

[Krom]

I got the majority of my ego equipment from Ace Hardware including the batteries, but I ordered online or in-store ahead of time for almost all of it because they didn't actually keep many of the items I bought in stock. That was fine though because I was replacing gas powered tools basically one at a time and could afford to wait.

[Tunnelcat]

Not ready to switch everything over to battery power. But for most of the yard tools, everything else is going Ego. Their quality is top-notch and hard to beat in my opinion.

I almost bought the Ego single stage snow blower last year, but I held off after hearing something. They released a new steel auger this early in the year. That's the one I'm going with later on. For everything heavier, there's that two stage black behemoth in the corner.



Damn Tunnelcat! 39 years is impressive, even for a Honda. It just proves the old motors were built like tanks back in the day.

Opps, I meant 32 year old Honda mower. bought in 1990. It's been well maintained and kept clean. It's even got the cast aluminum deck, which some people hated because it would corrode if it wasn't kept free of wet grass. It doesn't burn oil either, but it will leak oil past the piston rings if it sits level on the ground for a week. The guy at the power equipment place said even the new ones will do that, so I have to prop up the front to prevent that from happening, or else I get a cloud of blue smoke and a fouled spark plug. The thing is built like a tank and I don't think Honda mowers are built as well as that one was anymore. But I'm getting to the point of not wanting to maintain a gas engine or start it, so electric is looking better. Makita has an electric mower with a nice metal deck. I hope their new 40V version (don't know the Ah rating it will have yet) is built the same way whenever it comes out. Plastic decks may be lighter, but they're not more rugged.

[TigerRaptor]

Ego is releasing a bunch of new products soon, including this new zero-turn mower. This looks like a fun machine to mow with.

Now put two blowers on each side and you've got a Mower GX.

https://egopowerplus.com/42-inch-zero-t ... r-zt4205s/
asus fn spacebar

[Krom]

Ohh, a snow shovel attachment for the power head, might be just the thing we need to handle the accumulations that are too small for our big two stage blower. Would also be handy for clearing the uncovered areas of the porch which are up some stairs and inaccessible with the snowblower anyway.

Also now they make 12 amp-hour batteries, that is 672 watt-hours, impressive. Good to know by the time I need to replace my existing batteries I can probably even upgrade in the process!

[TigerRaptor]

Ego is making great strides with their battery products. Hopefully, they will start selling a pressure washer and a dethatcher in the near future.

[TigerRaptor]

This Scotts lawn sweeper rules. Picks up most of the dead thatch in one pass and it even picks up crickets, a lot of them actually.

free picture host

[TigerRaptor]

Ego is really turning up the heat against Styhl. They released the new 56V 765 CFM model not to long ago.

https://egopowerplus.com/blower-765cfm/

At this rate, who needs an EV. Strap a few of them on a bike and blow your way across town.

[TigerRaptor]

I'm waiting for Makita to come out with their 40V battery powered mower.

Seen one at Home Depot today.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-40-V ... /322449914
https://www.makitatools.com/products/to ... awn-mowers

[Isaac]

This Scotts lawn sweeper rules. Picks up most of the dead thatch in one pass and it even picks up crickets, a lot of them actually.

free picture host

I need dis

[Tunnelcat]

I'm waiting for Makita to come out with their 40V battery powered mower.

Seen one at Home Depot today.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-40-V ... /322449914
https://www.makitatools.com/products/to ... awn-mowers

Crap! $699 for the mower and $359 for an extra or replacement battery. It doesnt even have much range per battery according to the reviewers. Too rich for my blood right now.

[TigerRaptor]

There's a love-hate relationship with dandelions. While I do enjoy dandelion leaf and root tea, I hate them in the yard. Spent most of April popping everyone of them out before I could overseed in May. Using something like Spectracide would have been much easier, but we have two dogs.

I need dis

Be sure to wear some kind of eye wear. Can't tell you how many times stones and crickets went airborne.

[Krom]

So this winter we had late storm where a foot of snow accumulated and pretty much as soon as it ended it reached 33 degrees outside. Truly the worst case for a snow blower ever, it was sticky, it was wet, it was heavy and it was deep. I figured if our battery electric snow blower could handle that, then it can handle anything and it did without any difficulty. Not only was it able to clear all the sidewalks on our corner lot, but it also did the sidewalks of four other neighbors and still had enough battery to clear our driveway. Pretty amazing what you can do with just over a kilowatt hour worth of battery these days.

[TigerRaptor]

When conditions get like that, I'll spray down the auger, impeller, and chute with some oil-based or silicone spray to help prevent clogging.

At least you got something out of it. The Chicago area had a mild winter.

[Krom]

Yeah, we regularly treat all the working parts of the blower with ceramic coating spray. It is an inexpensive but more durable automotive hydrophobic coating, lasts longer than an oil or lube spray. Think like Rain-X but for an entire vehicle.

[TigerRaptor]

I've never seen such a patriotic fertilizer before; even the granules are red, white, and blue. I'll be saving this one for the fall as I focus more on the 3rd npk number and less on the first during the hot months.